Recommendations for an Aggregator?

[CosmicCadence]

I'm interested in hearing from those of you that have worked with an Artist Aggregator for digital distribution.

Looking to get my music up on Spotify - they recommend: TuneCore, CD Baby, EMU Bands, Record Union, Spinnup and Awal.

I understand each Aggregator has a different price / fee structure. Awal appears to be the only one listed above that offers a no up front fee, but take a 15% cut.

What experience or observations can you pass on that may be helpful?

And most importantly, are you getting royalties for streaming plays?

[ian]

i have a friend who, when i last spoke to him, made about $40/month from tunecore. that easily offsets the cost of signing up for it. afaik he doesn't do any actual marketing, but is so prolific that people get interested in his stuff anyway. i'm not sure if he's the exception or the rule, though. i've never been at a point in my life where i've felt comfortable selling music, so i personally have no experience with it.

[john k-n]

I released music with CD Baby 5 or 6 years ago and get a $50 payment from them about twice a year. It's almost all Spotify these days. 5 years ago it was itunes, amazon, and several other services that I think are in the bit bucket now.

I plan to post an example soon as I find the email.

I plan to use Distro Kid for my new stuff coming down the line.

[jvincion]

I went through CDBaby for a lot of my earlier releases, but I went through DistroKid for my most recent release "Times Change" because the former owner of CDBaby recommended them. I like the yearly payment schematic better and though I decided to upgrade my account to the 2nd tier because the first tier doesn't provide statistics, it allows me to release as much music as I want under two different project names, which I plan to take advantage of.